Studying Kanji is a Waste of Time

The popular new trend is "just learn kanji from vocabulary", but I could NEVER remember any vocabulary if I wasn't already familiar with the kanji. It would have been like trying to learn long words in Russian without having bothered to learn Cyrillic. I'm not saying studying kanji is the only way to learn, but for the love of god, try out different methods and find what works for YOU, because I wasted so much time listening to videos and advice like this.

I'm learning to read hiragana by learning to write hiragana.

The more I write a hiragana letter, the better and easier i remember it and recognize it.

I believe that eventually, chinese and japanese characters will get 'removed' because they're just problematic. In chinese, even natives forget characters and multiple characters have the same pronunciation. In japanese, many kanji have multiple pronunciations so even natives struggle to read new words. In both languages, the characters are hard to write. This is why other languages invented an ALPHABET.

Your advice is solid but it's also inherently flawed.
The reason you study a kanji, let's say, 船, is because it makes every other word using it a lot easier (船員、風船、船上）in a way that raw vocab study simply does not. Calling vocab study "faster" is simply not true.

The issue is not in learning kanji, it's in learning the readings without context. 生 is an easy bait for it, just like you showcased in the video, but for most other words, there's no real reason to learn the reading until you see the vocab.

As for the video of the teacher you linked, he embodies this quite well (and as popular as he is, he's also incredibly obnoxious, but I digress): What he's saying is simply not true. I totally can read the word he posted there. It's elementary school student. Given 大学生 and 中学生 both us onyomi readings, it's probably shougakusei. Absolutely shocking: combining kanji study with practical application works.

You then proceed to go into … kun and on readings. Which is the exact thing you're arguing you shouldn't focus on. Video's just all over the place in what's actually being said.

Studying Kanji and interacting meaningfully with kanji is useful.
Studying Kanji readings is not (per se).

You're attacking the idea of studying kanji, then explaining why studying kanji is the best way forward, whilst using a weak semantic-based logic for why your title is nice and edgy, it feels like.

Hey guys, I've been reading through the comments and just wanted to clarify some points that I might not have conveyed well enough in the video.

Maybe I came across as a little bit antagonistic (which wasn't my intention), so I just wanted to make clear that I'm not trying to attack anyone's methods or tell you that a certain method can't work. Different people have preferred methods, and that's okay.

A sentiment that a lot of people have is that trying to distinguish kanji as a beginner is difficult and that kanji study helps with that. I understand the value of this, and although I don't personally think it's necessary, I would bring this up as an option if I were to remake this video. I see so many people struggling to learn Japanese who spend way too much time overthinking it, and I think kanji study holds much of the blame for that. My goal with this video was to tell people that studying kanji isn't as important as many people think it is, and that if your goal is to become able to read written Japanese, you don't need to go out of your way to study it.

I think a lot of people are mistaking my statements about not studying kanji readings to mean that I don't think you should pay attention to them at all (which definitely could have been articulated better, so apologies), but that wasn't what I was trying to say at all. My point is that you learn kanji readings through learning words and allowing yourself to draw connections and use pattern recognition to learn kanji readings, not that you should completely disregard them.

It's okay if you don't agree with my advice, and I appreciate that most of the people offering differing opinions or criticism are doing so respectfully 🙂

I agree with you! It’s the same in learning English too..too many exceptions just memorize how to use it

PLEASE MAKE AN ANKI JAPANESE GUIDE. WILL BE VERY HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE STUPID (ME)

I have lived with Japanese as my mother tongue for more than half a century. However, there are still some kanji that I do not know or do not know how to read. I can also speak and read Chinese, but even so, there are often things I don't understand. So I understand how difficult it is for foreigners to learn Chinese characters. Please study patiently. Don't blame yourself because you don't understand kanji. Even I, a native Japanese speaker, often have to pull out a dictionary because I can't write kanji.

7:49: can you give me the name of this game?
Edit: nvm, I Found it : 漢字でgo

US dropped the ball and bent to sinorussia not to Japan, that is really good that you are studying Japanese!!!

A lot of Japanese kids can read a lot of kanji before going into school by a lot of exposure, so yeah I think this is a good method. But don't worry, many young adults can't write kanji too since we don't write that much anymore.